1) Marianne von Martinez 2) Clara Wieck Schumann 3) Grazyna Bacewicz 4) Ruth Crawford Seeger 5) Amy Marcy Cheney Beach 6) Margaret Bonds

During her life, Marianne von Martinez was highly esteemed as a singer, pianist and composer. Of her more than 200 works--oratorios, cantatas, sacred choral works, a symphony, piano concertos, piano pieces and songs--only about seventy survive and most are unpublished. Mozart wrote piano duets to perform with her.

The Sonata in A is one of two piano sonatas by Martinez published in 1765. The three-movement work shows her strong understanding of the early classical Viennese style of the time--the light and graceful character, the rococo embellishments and rounded binary forms, the empsfindsamer Stil ("sensitive style") of the middle movement, and the minuet as the final movement.

Clara Wieck Schumann was one of the greatest concert pianists of the nineteenth century, touring Europe extensively from the age of thirteen, often performing her own compositions in concert. She was married to Robert Schumann, had eight children, and was also the close friend and musical partner of Johannes Brahms.

Composed in 1853 as a birthday gift for her husband, Clara Schumann's Opus 20 Variations is her most ambitious solo piano work. The theme for the seven variations is from Robert Schumann's Bünte Blätter (Op. 99, no. 4), a theme also used by Brahms in 1854 for a set of variations (his Op. 9). The variations generally follow the theme quite closely, with variations two and seven containing the most alterations in form. The set is written in F-sharp minor, the key of the original theme, with beautiful contrasts provided by variation three and the coda, both in F-sharp major.

Grazyna Bacewicz was one of the most successful woman composers of her time. Her works were frequently performed, and she was regarded in the 1950's as one of the leading Polish composers. Her works include four symphonies, seven violin concertos, other orchestral works, chamber music (including seven string quartets) and many piano pieces.

The Second Piano Sonata skillfully blends neoclassical style with folk-related elements. The vigorous opening movement is a rhapsodic type of sonata form, with the second theme, initially slow and folk-like, gradually developing into a powerful final statement. The second movement is dominated by a folk-derived theme in the Dorian mode, with a fugato near the end for contrast. The final Toccata is a brilliant and showy movement incorporating the rhythms of the oberek, a rousing Polish folk dance related to the mazurka.

Ruth Crawford Seeger, one of America's finest woman composers, had two separate and distinct musical careers in her short life. First, she was a major figure in the American modernist movement during the 1920's and '30's. Her main works were written during these years, some of which incorporate forward-looking techniques. In 1930, she became the first woman to win a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition.

Crawford Seeger's second musical career began in 1935 when she and her husband, musicologist Charles Seeger, became involved in the folk music renaissance of that time. She devoted the rest of her life to the promotion of folk music and children's music through transcribing, editing, arranging and teaching. Three of her five children became folk singers: Pete (her stepson), Peggy and Michael.

The four preludes (from a set of nine preludes) are early works showing the influence of Scriabin and impressionist composers; they also reflect some of her modernist style characteristics. Preludes 6, 7 and 9 are atmospheric works, emphasizing the harmonic color of the major seventh interval; No. 8 is a darting, staccato scherzo in alternating open fifths with a contrasting gracious, lilting middle section.

Amy Beach (Mrs. H.H.A. Beach) was the first woman in the United States to have a successful career as a composer of symphonic and other large-scale works. Almost all of Beach's 152 compositions were published soon after completion and performed throughout her lifetime by established artists and prominent groups. The solo piano works and many songs were her best-known compositions at the time and remain so today.

Beach's style embraced the chromatic harmony of the late Romanticism and certain elements of Impressionism, usually within a balanced Classical formal structure. The Sketches of Opus 15 conform to this description and show the Romantic predilection toward programmatic titles and poetic inspiration. Each of the pieces bears a subtitle from French poetry:

1. In Autumn-"Feuillages jaunissants sur les gazons épars," Lamartine.
        ("Leaves becoming yellow on the sparse lawn.")
2. Phantoms-"Toutes fragiles fleurs, sitôt mortes que nées," Victor Hugo.
        ("All fragile flowers, as soon dead as born.")
3. Dreaming-"Tu me parles du fond d'n rêve," Victor Hugo.
        ("You speak to me from the depths of a dream.")

Bonds' compositions show the influence of spirituals, blues and jazz. Probably her best-known works are the spiritual arrangements for solo voice and piano commissioned by Leontyne Price and other leading vocalists. Troubled Water (date of composition unknown) treats the traditional spiritual "Wade in the Water" to a variety of transformations within a fantasy-like structure.

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